2. The Future of Security

The Reith Lectures

BBC

Society & Culture, Science, Government, Technology

4.2 • 770 Ratings

🗓️ 6 December 2023

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This year's BBC Reith Lecturer is Ben Ansell, Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions at Nuffield College, Oxford University. He will deliver four lectures called “Our Democratic Future.”

In his series Professor Ansell asks how we can build a politics that works for all of us with systems which are robust to the challenges of the twenty first century, from climate change to artificial intelligence. The lectures build on his recent book Why Politics Fails, which identifies a series of traps that prevent us from attaining our collective goals and presents solutions to help us overcome those traps.

In this second lecture called 'The Future of Security', recorded in Berlin in front of an audience, he asks whether citizens of wealthy countries have been lulled into a false sense of security about threats from abroad and at home. It examines how we can control the security technologies of tomorrow, from facial recognition to autonomous weapons. And Ansell suggests how we can develop technologies powerful enough to protect us without exploiting us. The Reith Lectures are chaired by Anita Anand and produced by Jim Frank. The Editor is China Collins, and the coordinator is Brenda Brown. The series is mixed by Rod Farquhar and Neil Churchill.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy.
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0:10.8	The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that.
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0:41.3	BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.
0:46.5	Hi, I'm Ben Ansel and thank you for listening to my BBC Radio Forith lectures on our democratic future. In this second lecture on the future of security, I'll be looking at threats
0:51.8	to our safety, at home and abroad, and what we can do to better protect ourselves.
0:57.2	Welcome to Berlin for the second of the 2023 Reith Lectures.
1:02.8	We're at the Hurti School of Governance, close to the Brandenburg Gate, and to what was once the epicenter of the Cold War.
1:17.6	Located in the east of the city, the building was previously used by the former communist GDR government. These days, students from more than 80 countries come here to learn about international affairs and government.
1:23.6	So it really is such a terrific fit for this year's series, which is called
1:28.7	Our Democratic Future. Now last time our lecturer looked at how we might improve democracy,
1:36.9	now he's going to be assessing our safety in its broadest sense and asking if we are becoming
1:43.2	too complacent about threats both from home
1:46.1	and abroad. And this is a place that really understands what our lecture is talking about.
1:51.6	Berlin's geopolitical location between Western and Eastern Europe has often placed it right
1:57.1	on the front line. And Berliners have long been mindful of vulnerability, vulnerability that reaches back to Red Army
2:05.7	soldiers or the Starzy.
2:08.1	Let's hear what the Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions from Nuffield College,
	...

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